


bruises that curl

by serenfire



Series: masks [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Supervillains, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 04:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3235874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenfire/pseuds/serenfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Flash is sighted fleeing the bank, carting with him several million in cash. The CCPD follows, and for Barry, this hour of aching joints and pretend smiles is more difficult than the heist itself.</p><p>supervillain!AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	bruises that curl

**Author's Note:**

> @anyone I know irl: do not read thanks

“Hey,” Joe waves as Barry bends under the crime scene tape with his forensics kit, still breathing heavily. “You’re late.” 

Barry grimaces and stares at the bank surrounded by cop cars to formulate a reply. 

Of course he’s late; his work phone rang only a handful of minutes after the Flash was spotted streaking away from the scene of the crime, twenty million in cash lifted directly from the vault hidden on his person. It took milliseconds after Barry hung up, the news of _another_ robbery this month by the Flash floating in the air, to hide the duffels of marked money around the city and shower, but it was 3 in the morning and he needed to eat. 

“It was a late night,” Barry waves his hand in the air vaguely. 

Joe gestures beyond the stretching arches of the formidable building’s exterior. “Eddie’s in the vault with the manager. Iris tagged along, by the way.” 

Barry nods. Iris wouldn’t risk being on the same floor as him or Eddie most days, but her night job as the blogger/Youtuber of all things the Flash came before their recent history. 

The vault’s clean, Barry already knows. He walks past Eddie conversing with the manager about security footage and Iris in the opposite corner by the open steel door, chatting animatedly into her camera and ignoring them. 

Cisco’s perfectly crafted Flash gloves withstood the test of the force it took to spin (and break) the wheel of the vault, leaving no detectable DNA on-site. Barry had eased the door open and slipped in, waltzing from shelf to shelf between blares of the stuttering alarm and swiped marked cash into his duffels, without so much as sneeze residue left on the metal. 

Which Barry does now, sneezing into the crook of his arm, dust allergies flaring under stress. 

Eddie calls, “Allen, why don’t you put on a mask?” 

He wipes his nose on his arm. “Right, okay.” He digs around his briefcase and pulls out the nose and mouth mask, slipping it over his ears. He can barely function. 

(To be honest, he did just rob the third-largest stack of known cash in Central City an hour ago. The jitters were a bit late to arrive, but they are now here for the after party.) 

“Allen,” Eddie says expectantly over Barry’s flash of memory, and Barry shakes out of it to see Eddie squatted next to his position sitting within arm’s reach of the empty gleaming shelves. “You okay?” 

“No,” Barry whispers, letting his forehead rest against Eddie’s shoulder. How does one explain the effects of a Saturday spent chatting up the local mafia determining the territory this bank belongs to? “I - I’ve just had a long day, I’m sorry. And now _this_ , like nothing we’ve ever dealt with before.” 

“You were holding out hope that the Flash wasn’t really what all the petty thievery and hijacking painted him as? That he would suddenly read Iris’ blog and turn himself in, so we can stop cleaning up his messes?” 

Bruises weaving between Barry’s ribs and curling behind his shoulder blades scream that turning himself into the police is _all_ the Flash wants, but scraped-clean knuckles and strangulation marks beneath his shirt collar speak more about his chances of survival on the ‘good side’. 

Instead of answering, Barry grins, unseen beneath his mask. “I’m starving,” he confesses. “And it’s a Sunday, and I should be asleep.” 

“We’ve only got an hour more here at most,” Eddie whispers into his ear, holding Barry like he had fallen, exhausted, onto his shoulder. “I can take you out to eat, after.” 

“A date at _this_ time of night? Why not?” Barry murmurs back. Another hour of shaking insomniac fingers before he can examine his hiding places and make the drop, but in Eddie’s company and not at home alone. 

Eddie stands up, and Barry smiles and turns back to his work — the few wads of cash dropped under the shelves, evidence of a hurry. He photographs and bags it for evidence, loose crumpled hundred bills in no particular order. It _was_ a mistake born of executing the plan on two hours of sleep and an empty stomach, but Barry can’t glean anything from it except that the Flash does, in fact, have hands. 

However, Barry is guilt-indebted to Iris for anything that could ease the jagged gap between them, and she could use this to interest her fan base. He walks over to where Iris, completely silent during his and Eddie’s exchange, began lecturing her camera on the intricacies of this certain vault and how the Flash broke in. 

Even Joe is under the illusion she and Eddie broke up because of her avid fascination with the Flash and the tensions with Eddie’s assignment to hunt him down. No one else knows she caught him cheating on her (former) best friend. 

“Hey,” Barry says. “I’m sorry if I’m interrupting.” 

“You’re not,” Iris smiles vacantly. “It’s fine.” 

“I found these left here by accident, dropped by the Flash.” Barry attempts an eye wiggle at the camera. “Thought you might want to expound upon it for a while. The Flash doesn’t execute perfect robberies. He missed a thousand bucks.” 

“Can’t say I’m disappointed he missed something, but at the same time, I kind of _am_ ,” Iris gushed at the camera, holding up the plastic bag and adjusting the focus to the crumpled greens. She doesn’t even glance at Barry. “I _wonder_ if this can give us any clue to who the Flash is - his hand size? If he stepped on them; his height?” 

“I couldn’t make out anything on them,” Barry says when the suspenseful silence lingers. 

“You sure didn’t _make out_ anything,” she shoots back, eyes brighter than ever with the low blow that hurts more than the stab wound in his thigh. “But maybe _someone else_ could. I have subscribers more competent than a forensic analyst, after all. Oh, I’ll also need the official pictures of this sent to me.” 

“As soon as I can,” Barry nods, turning back to his side of the room, shame washing over him anew. The truth is he’s so sorry for everything he put her through, but his relationship with Eddie is his anchor in the midst of maneuvering through the back alley backstabbers and dealing up the underworld chain of command in the everlasting search to find the man with the yellow lightning. 

Barry cannot let go of Eddie, cannot slip out of his life like it was three months ago and the Flash was spotted for the first time thwarting a murder attempt. He cannot act like before the hook of _possible information_ reeled him into the dark side and blackmail kept him there. 

He also cannot get rid of the scars on his soul and the animated bruises covering him like a chest piece. He cannot detach the Flash from himself, and he cannot begin to make amends for his actions that cemented his place on Central City’s most wanted list. 

There is never enough foundation to cover the bags beneath his eyes, nor enough caffeine to prevent him forgetting hours of his day. Barry only retains automatic movements, jerky, uneven, and mostly forgotten, packing up his forensics kit and logging the scene without conscious input, his mind stuck on his heartbeat beneath his blossoming skin. 

“Allen,” Eddie says, and he’s in front of Barry without any warning, a hand reached out to help him up. “The footage had no discernible pictures of the Flash on it, so our job is over.” 

Iris has already gone home to edit and upload her video, intentionally missing the way Barry and Eddie will leave together. 

“You walked here, right?” Eddie continues. 

Barry nods, the memory of the heist almost on his lips. 

It would be so easy to say _I’m the Flash._ It would be so easy to scream _I’m so sorry, you can arrest me now_ to the police officers twenty feet away. It would be the easiest decision he has ever made to give up now, to spend the rest of his life in an orange jumpsuit, to fade into forgotten fame and die alone. 

“I’ll drive you, then, to the restaurant,” Eddie says, and taps Barry on the shoulder. “You with me?” 

Barry smiles at him, and takes Eddie’s hand. 

“Of course.” 

**Author's Note:**

> my [tumblr](http://www.tylerjosephstoast.tumblr.com)


End file.
